Software, Hardware, Research – Results

About 4 weeks ago I was totally frustrated by the latest MS Office suite. I’m on contract at a place that has a number of Human Interface engineers, so went looking for some sympathy...

I’ve been a Word user since the first demo version came out for my Mac 512K and although I’ve used better word processing software for important docs, like a thesis and dissertation, I have become pretty good at using MS products because work has always required it.

This latest incarnation (because it feels like the Devil was involved) is so badly broken that it’s barely usable. For normal tasks in Word, I’m significantly less productive. I am forever switching menu ribbon views to do simple things like inserting unformatted text and then creating a cross-reference or inserting and equation.

The Human Interface engineer I talked to agreed, and pointed out that supposedly the whole reason MS changed everything is that they found new users learned 10% more quickly how to use MS Office. Big Deal!!! What about the rest of us that have permanently lost productivity? What about the thousands of dollars I know the company I’m contracted to has spent on MS Office training just because they chose to roll out MS Office 2007. It almost makes ya think that there’s some collusion with training companies...

Long story short, I finally did the right thing and got a family pack of iWork. Much happier now.